119TH CONGRESS

119TH CONGRESS

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 3 (Tuesday, January 7, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 3 (Tuesday, January 7, 2025)] [Senate] [Pages S38-S40] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] 119TH CONGRESS Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as you know, last Friday, the Senate swore in new leaders for the 119th Congress, and in 2 weeks, the new Commander in Chief will be sworn in for a second time. We are 6 days into a new year, and people around the country are making resolutions for the new year--everything from health to fitness, books to read, financial goals to meet--and as Republicans, now is a good time for us to do the exact same thing. We have our work cut out for us to help clean up the mess that President Biden and Senate Democrats have left us from the last 4 years. I believe our first and most urgent task is to confirm President Trump's nominees for his Cabinet. The President won the election, and he is entitled to his team, absent extraordinary circumstances. It is simply impossible for the new administration to tackle the mountain of work waiting for them without their team of advisers who will lead critical government Agencies. Without the President's Cabinet in place, he cannot get the job done that he was elected to do on November 5. With his Cabinet in place, we can get to work to implement the agenda that Texans and Americans across the country elected a trifecta of Republican leaders to accomplish. The top of our list of priorities is, of course, to secure the southern border. I represent a State with 1,200 miles of common border with Mexico, and, sadly and tragically, under the previous administration's open border policies, it has been an unmitigated disaster. The crisis at the southern border is one that President Biden quite literally invited with his campaign rhetoric and with his administration's policies. He invited this crisis. This was perhaps the one campaign promise that he delivered on. The Biden administration set out to reverse many, if not all, of President Trump's policies from his first term, including the ``Remain in Mexico'' policy and title 42. Under President Biden's watch, the Border Patrol was overwhelmed with record numbers of illegal migrants crossing the border. Border Patrol encountered more than 370 people on the Terror Watchlist crossing between ports of entry during the Biden administration. We know there were roughly a dozen people who were part of the conspiracy that resulted in the death of 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001, and now here we have 370 people on the Terror Watchlist that crossed between ports of entry during the Biden administration. Well, that compares with well under 10 per year under the Trump administration. But I think the point is pretty obvious: This is dangerous. Those are only the aliens who the Border Patrol encountered or apprehended. Remember that President Biden also set records for ``got- aways.'' That is what the Border Patrol calls the people who simply evaded law enforcement--aliens who fled because, frankly, they were up to no good. As of May, more than 1.7 million ``got-aways'' had made their way into the United States under their watch. These are just people who triggered various cameras and sensors and were able to evade law enforcement. Surely there were more that were able to make their way into the interior of the United States. Again, under President Biden's border policies, all you have to do is turn yourself in and you would be released into the interior, but these are people that could not even risk that because of either their criminal records or their intention to do harm, including carry drugs into the United States. Since the Biden administration established the word ``asylum'' as a magic word that resulted in their release into the interior, we can be pretty sure that many of those evading Border Patrol have something else to hide. Human trafficking and drug trafficking by the cartels have caused enormous and often untold suffering for the people of my home State of Texas and Americans as a whole. Fentanyl, which is now the leading cause of death of young people in America 18 to 45, is manufactured--or the precursors are manufactured in China and trafficked through the U.S.-Mexico border. Countless migrants released into the interior of our country have failed to show up for their day in court, showing others looking to make the dangerous journey to the United States that they might also be able to make it and suffer zero consequences. All of these actions--or lack of actions--from the Biden administration have sent a clear signal that the laws of the United States will not be enforced. You know, law enforcement depends on our great men and women in blue to investigate crimes and to deter other people from committing crimes, but deterrence is a very important element that has simply been lost by the Biden administration's open border policies. Given the fact that most people who come to the United States know, under the Biden administration, that they will simply be released, there is no reason for them to believe that they will not be released as well, and so there is zero deterrence. That is getting ready to change under President Trump. [[Page S39]] Now, speaking of breaking the law without consequence, violent crime is another problem plaguing Texans and American cities across the country. Leftwing mayors and city governments have advanced soft-on- crime policies in major cities from Chicago to Los Angeles and from New York to San Francisco. What has been the result? Well, criminals have noticed that there are no consequences to them committing crimes in these cities. The lack of consequences is an incentive, an encouragement for them to continue stealing, breaking, and murdering. That is all beginning to change under a new administration. Republicans are prepared to take steps necessary to prevent and ensure that ramifications for these crimes exist. We have done so before, and we are going to do so again. During President Trump's first administration, I was proud to partner with him on legislation to lock up violent criminals and ensure justice for victims. One of my top priorities for the new year is to do everything I can to build on the great work we accomplished under President Trump's first term to make sure that our communities, our cities, and our streets are once again safe. Another way that we will keep our citizens safe is by ensuring that Second Amendment rights are safeguarded. The Trump administration will end President Biden's assault on the Second Amendment--the right to keep and bear arms--as well as the Biden administration's bad-faith interpretations of Second Amendment-related legislation. I look forward to leading my Senate colleagues in reintroducing my Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act and working with the Trump administration and our cosponsors here in the Senate to get this legislation across the finish line. Now, I know some folks from places like New York or maybe San Francisco might say: You are actually going to make it easier for people to carry a firearm legally? Well, the answer is, already the vast majority of States have licensing regimes where responsible, law-abiding citizens can exercise their Second Amendment rights by getting a license to carry a firearm, including Texas and including the District of Columbia. I happen to have a license in both jurisdictions. Many States have gone simply to a nonlicensed status so that people can exercise their Second Amendment rights. I would reiterate, America and Americans have nothing to fear from law-abiding citizens exercising their Second Amendment rights. Those are not the people we should be concerned about. We should be most concerned about people who are criminals who cannot legally carry a firearm or people with mental health incapacities who are currently prohibited under existing law from carrying or owning or possessing a firearm. Those are existing laws that are enforced, given the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Now, while our safety and security start at home, in our communities, and at our borders, it also extends around the world. As I have said before from this floor, we now have the most dangerous geopolitical environment that we have had since World War II. Texans voted resoundingly for President Trump in this last election in part because of his pledge to hold China accountable. China threatens the peace in the Indo-Pacific by threatening to invade its neighbor Taiwan and interrupt freedom of commerce and freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific. One of the ways that we can hold China accountable is to pass my legislation to address outbound investment in China. I just had a chance to visit with the new Treasury Secretary nominee, and I told him it was really strange to me when you look historically at how we dealt with the Soviet Union and how we dealt with China, both of which are ruled by communist governments. Many years ago, at the beginning of the Cold War, George Kennan, a famous diplomat, wrote something called the ``Long Telegram,'' where he said you are not going to change communist Russia. It is an ideological obsession they have. You are not going to change their minds. So what you need to do--what the free world needs to do--is to contain them. And that is what the Cold War was all about, leading ultimately to the fall of the Soviet Union. Strangely enough, the U.S. position toward China was just the opposite. Under President Clinton, he invited them into the World Trade Organization, believing that somehow by engaging in more trade with the rest of the world, that somehow China and the Communist Party would change. Well, as Xiaoping, one of the former leaders of communist China, said: Hide your motives and bide your time. And that is exactly what China has done. China has now become the manufacturing center for the w